Monday, April 9, 2018

Tony Perkins continues to insist that LGBT people pose a threat to children

Hate group leader Tony Perkins continues to lie about LGBT people

One of the many reasons that Family Research Council has been designated a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center is their contention that LGBT people (particularly gay men) are child predators. FRC uses a familiar tactic to raise money. Anger people while posing FRC as a solution.

I have received a series of gimme-money emails with an appeal that is best described as cynical. FRC wants to hit conservative Christian hot buttons:

Your support is the first step to our national citizen education campaign to...

Defund Planned Parenthood and protect human life;

Defend religious freedom in the workplace and in the U.S. military;

Protect families with school-aged children from the radical LGBT agenda; and much more.

The full context is worthy of examination. First of all, what they mean — what “they” all mean — regarding Planned Parenthood is to make the organization ineligible for Medicaid reimbursement for services that have nothing to do with abortion. They want to punish Planned Parenthood for also providing a lawful medical procedure (not funded by Medicaid) that they disapprove of for religious reasons.

FRC is the same group that rails against the nonexistent possibility of Sharia law being enforced in the United States. Yet, they are proposing what amounts to pretty much the same thing. It's just the Christian varietal instead of Islamic. Radical Christianity is not far distant from radical Islam. Only politics separates the two.

Defending religious freedom really means allowing businesses and military personnel to discriminate against LGBT people. FRC does not like nondiscrimination laws unless, of course, they are enforced against anti-Christian actions and there don't seem to be very many of those.

We have a Supreme Court ruling dating back to 1878 (Reynolds v. U.S.) which allows the state to regulate behavior as long as it is not regulating belief. It will be interesting to see, presumably in late June, whether or not the Court honors their prior ruling as it pertains to a baker who discriminated against gay couples. FRC seeks one set of laws for conservative Christians and another set for everyone else.

And of course there is the anti-LGBT diatribe. Substitute homosexual agenda for “LGBT agenda” and FRC's intent is quite clear. Tony Perkins posits that, unless held in check by an organization like FRC, LGBT people pose a “radical” threat to children. Exactly what that threat is remains unexplained.

However, the threat does not require elucidation for FRC's constituency. They tend to believe that sexual orientation and gender identity are choices that can be influenced by “radical” LGBT activists.

This appeal apparently works. For the year ended June 30, 2017 the two FRC entities took in a total of $18.3 million dollars. However, they are not using those funds for, as claimed, a “national citizen education campaign.” (The 990 forms are not yet available via Guidestar).

FRC, particularly Tony Perkins and Jerry Boykin, have demonstrated considerable greed for power. Rather than educating anyone they are influencing public policy. FRC's lever is a conservative Christian voting block which is the constituency for many organizations. Perkins has done a good job of appealing to Trump's ego (which doesn't require a great deal of deftness). In return they are getting edicts like the transgender troop ban which have no rational basis. Who needs rationality when you have religious literalism based on ancient chronicles?

Yet even those are less important than political power. In other words the ability to influence is more important than what is actually influenced. That explains the lack of Christian condemnation for Trump's behavior. They have gotten in bed with a misogynist, a swindler and a pathological liar. Perkins' “mulligan” for Trump's sexual escapades speaks volumes about ethical and intellectual dishonesty in the service of political power.

Eventually these folks are going to wake up with flees. It is inevitable and, yet, LGBT people will probably be blamed for the misadventures of people like Tony Perkins.

If something is radical here it is not a mythical LGBT agenda. Rather, it is the attempt to hijack our government by advocates of Christian supremacy.

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On a personal note, my move last week was far from smooth. Most of my boxes are now unpacked. This blog should return to normal shortly.